An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Friday, January 10, 2014

The Storied Past and Muddled Present of the SCLC

The storied Selma to Montgomery March.

Note:A
re-run, but an important tale.

Just
weeks after the landmark Bus Boycott
in Montgomery, Alabama ended on
December 21, 1956 with the desegregation of the city’s bus system, the leaders
of that struggle, the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the Rev. Ralph
Abernathy, convened a meeting on January 10, 1957 that led to the creation
of the most important Civil Rights
organization in the South over the
turbulent next decade.

The
idea originated with Bayard Rustin,
the long time pacifist Civil Rights leader, formerly of the Quaker Fellowship of Reconciliation,
and at the time the leader of the War
Resistor’s League.Rustin had come
to Montgomery where he helped King develop the non-violent campaign.Rustin
first approached another veteran civil rights leader, the Rev. C.K. Steele, who had organized a similar bus boycott in Tallahassee. Florida, with his idea of
a regional organization founded on the principles of non-violence to coordinate
campaigns to integrated busses and other accommodations across the South.Steele
declined, but told Rustin he would be glad to work under the leadership of
King.

King
called a meeting of 60 key leaders at his Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on January 10.Besides King, Abernathy, Rustin, and Steele
other important participants were Ella
Baker, a veteran New York activist;
the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Alabama; and the Rev Joseph
Lowery of Mobile, Alabama.These individuals would provide the core
leadership of the organization that they created for decades.

The
day of the meeting Abernathy’s home and Montgomery church were bombed.He had been scheduled to chair the meeting,
but had to return home.King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, was chosen to
preside in his absence.The organization
was formed and tentatively named the Southern
Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration.A further organizational meeting was
scheduled for a month later on February 10 in New Orleans to formalize the
structure and elect an ExecutiveBoard and officers.

At
the February meeting it was decided to broaden the purpose beyond bus
boycotts.Different names were suggested
before the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) was finally
agreed upon.King was elected President, Steele as Vice President, the Rev. T. J. Jemison of Baton Rouge, Louisiana as Secretary, and Attorney I. M. Augustine of New Orleans as General Counsel.Ella Baker
was hired as the group’s only paid staff member.

Unlike
the National Association of Colored
People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which were already active in the
South, the SCLC was organized as an association of churches and community
organizations governed by the Board.The
older organizations recruited individuals and organized them in somewhat
autonomous local chapters.This model of
organization proved to be difficult in the early days because, despite high
hopes, many Black churches were reluctant to join either because they were
afraid of the consequences of being publicly associated with it, or because
they opposed the “politicization” of the churches.

Organizational
issues slowed the growth of the SCLC in the early years and confined it to
educational and smaller local initiatives.But it its charismatic leader, Dr. King, soon helped bring it to the
fore in struggles across the South.

In
1960 the State of Tennessee revoked
the charter of the Highlander Folk School,
which had long trained leaders like Rosa
Parks.While the School fought to
regain control of their property, its Citizenship
Schools project was taken over by the SCLC.This project ostensibly was to educate voters so that they could pass
state literacy tests and register to
vote, but it also trained thousands in the tactics of non-violence.Graduates from the program fanned out across
the South working not only for the SCLC, but for other organizations in the
field.

The
SCLC first mass campaign, held in cooperation with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Albany, Georgia,
gained few lasting victories despite mass protests and arrests in 1960-61.King’s reputation was somewhat tarnished by
the failure.

But
he applied the painful lessons learned there in 1963 Birmingham Campaign.The
brutal attacks on demonstrators there by Sheriff
Bull Connors and the church bombing that killed Four Little Girls riveted the nation’s attention.King’s Letter
from a Birmingham Jail helped rally support from northern liberal Whites.

In
the summer of 1963 King and the SCLC, Rustin, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters leader A. Phillip Randolph, James
Farmerof CORE, John Lewis of SNCC, Roy
Wilkins of the NAACP, and Whitney
Young of the Urban League
organized the March for Jobs and Freedom
in Washington.The massive turn out, live television
coverage, and Dr. King’s memorable I Have a Dream speech helped get the
Civil Rights Act of 1963 through Congress.

Ahead
lay the bloody Selma Campaign and
the historic Selma to Montgomery March.Despite its success and King’s fame, by the
mid-1960’s the SCLC’s strict adherence to Non-violence was causing friction
with increasingly militant SNCC and CORE.King’s insistence on tackling issues of economic inequality and
opposition to the Vietnam War alienated
much of his support among White liberals and he was criticized as diverting
attention from racism by the growing ranks of Black Nationalists.

In
1965 King attempted to bring Southern style mass demonstrations to Chicago in cooperation with Al Raby’s Coordinating Council of Community
Organizations (CCCO). TheChicago
Freedom Movement concentrated
on the de facto segregation of
the city’s housing.King took up
residence in a Chicago slum apartment and began to lead open housing
marches which were met by near riots by whites in the Chicago neighborhood of Marquette
Park and in the western suburb of Cicero.Although a Summit Agreement with city officials resulted in some reforms,
Chicago remained the nation’s most segregated city when King and the SCLC wound
up their involvement in the campaign.

King
was beginning to believe that economic inequality was as important as racism in
the keeping Blacks down.He wanted to
unite Blacks with poor Whites, Latinos,
and Native Americans in a Poor People’s Campaign which would
include another mass march on Washington and the establishment of a semi-permanent
tent city until Congress took action.Although he had the strong support of Abernathy, other allies believed
he was diverting attention.His
increasing criticism of the War in Vietnam and regular appearances at mass
anti-war demonstrations was also causing friction.

But
King and SCLC leaders were determined to press ahead on all fronts.He was somewhat reluctantly drawn into a Memphis Garbage Worker’s strike.Despite the urging of aids that he concentrate
on planning the Poor People’s Campaign, King felt the strike was at the heart
of militancy on economic issues.After
leading one march which resulted in scattered violence when elements broke away
from the main body, King vowed to return to lead a truly non-violent march in
support of sanitation workers.The night
before the scheduled march, King gave his famous, prophetic I
Have Been to the Mountain Top speech.The next day he was cut down by an assassin’s bullet.

Long
time top aid Abernathy assumed leadership of the SCLC.He successfully conducted the Poor People’s
Campaign in King’s honor.He continued
to lead the organization until 1977 when he resigned to make an unsuccessful
run for Congress. Late in life he had some bizarre connections with the Unification Church, and his 1989 memoir
And
The Walls Came Tumbling Down was controversial.In relating his close working relationship
with King, Abernathy detailed alleged sexual peccadilloes by the martyred
leader and some critics believed it generally puffed up Abernathy’s reputation,
long overshadowed by his more famous associate.Abernathy died in 1990 at the age of 64.

Joseph
Lowery was President from 1977 to 1987.He was succeeded by Martin Luther
King, Jr.The younger King’s seven
year tenure was troubled.The
organization seemed to drift under his leadership and he was accused of not
becoming involved in important Civil Rights causes, especially the disenfranchisement
of Black voters in Florida.After young King’s resignation under pressure,
founder Fred Shuttleworth took the
reins in 2004, but resigned in less than a year citing infighting and a
dysfunctional Board.

The
organization has been in turmoil and decline ever since.Charles Steele, Jr., son of another founder provide week leadership
until 2009.Bernice King, was
elected to replace him, but deferred taking office until issues with the Board
were resolved.Those issues included
charges that key members may have embezzled more than $569,000,
resulting in a Federal investigation and possible Internal Revenue Service fines and sanctions.A law suit resulted in the accused board
members being reinstated.Board Chair Sylvia Tucker, who brought
the original charges against the pair, was been in functional control of the
organization and led its 2010 national convention.

The
Rev. Howard Creecy Jr. was elected
President in 2011 but soon died in office.Isaac Newton Farris Jr., a
nephew of Dr. King, an Atlanta businessman, and former President of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent
Social Change in Atlanta was selected to take the helm.But this summer, after less than a year in
office he was ousted by the Board with no specified charges against him.He enjoys the support of many local
affiliates and members of the King family which has demanded his
re-instatement.

The
future of the SCLC remains in doubt.The
organization’s web page has not been updated since Farris’s ouster.The last post was an article in German.The one before that chronicled meetings about
the 2008 presidential campaign.What
resources the national organization has left are being drained away by costly
litigation over the leadership struggles.Some local affiliates apparently still function, but without much
support.

A
small SCLC contingent marched behind a banner at the 2012 and ’13 commemorative
Selma to Montgomery marches.

Winding
down not with a bang but with a whimper is a sad fate for an organization that
literally helped re-shape America.